Buffalo News: “Blackouts Are Bad Business for the NFL”

SportsFans.org

Feb. 27, 2012, 10:48 AM

The Buffalo News' Donne Esmonde had a great column yesterday blasting the NFL for its blackout policy and pointing to the findings of nine top sports economists who have told the FCC that blackouts don't work. Esmonde writes:

I cannot figure out why the league clings to an artifact from a bygone era that, financially and otherwise, does it more harm than good. The NFL gets more than half of its revenue from advertising. It makes no sense to deprive your target audience of the product.

The TV blackout is based on the premise that televising home games hurts ticket sales. There is one problem with the notion: It is not true.

Nine of the nation's top sports economists this month blind-sided the blackout argument. "There is no evidence," they wrote in a report to the FCC, "that the current blackout practices of the NFL have a significant affect on attendance, revenues [and] profits."

Kudos to Esmonde for recognizing the importance of the findings by the sports economists. Read the rest of his column here.